Tuesday, 19 April 2011

...the pursuit of happiness..?

...The economists Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett suggested in The Spirit Level that countries with more equal incomes had fewer social problems, though others protested that such countries were just smaller or had fewer immigrants...Simon Jenkins (The Guardian, April 13, 2011)

Bromley Cuts Concern founder-supporter Bill Kerry, in his capacity as Co-Director of the Equality Trust - corrects and comments upon Jenkins' column in published letter to The Guardian, Saturday 16 April.

Simon Jenkins ('My advice for the happiness lobby? Start with drugs', 13 April) describes the authors of The Spirit Level as economists when, in fact, they are epidemiologists. He then follows this up by apparently suggesting that immigration and country size are factors worthy of equal consideration alongside income inequality as explanations for social dysfunction. These red herrings and many others have been dealt with by Wilkinson and Pickett in the additional chapter added to the latest edition of The Spirit Level. People can also read more about this on our website at www.equalitytrust.org.uk.

Simon Jenkins' full article can be found here and other readers' letters can be found here.

About Me

Bromley Cuts Concern has been formed to scrutinise and, where necessary, oppose the forthcoming cuts programme to be implemented by Bromley Council. We seek to be a broad, community-based group of concerned residents, independent of any political party. We believe that the best way to cut the country’s deficit would be to clamp down on tax evasion, tighten up tax avoidance loopholes and address the appalling under-collection of taxes. Combined, these could generate up to £100 billion a year according to the New Economics Foundation. Action on tax would mainly affect those better able to pay whereas cutting public expenditure disproportionately hits the poor.